We’re closing this live blog down now. Thanks for reading and commenting. For the latest developments in the Jenrick story, read my colleague Rajeev Syal’s latest article:

And, for those not fully up to speed, here’s the background:

You can read a summary of the day’s earlier events here.

Following those comments in the Commons, Reed has now said:

These explosive new revelations show clear discrepancies between what the secretary of state told the House of Commons and what appears in the official documents.

The documents clearly show that Mr Jenrick did not notify officials immediately after his meeting with Mr Desmond; rather than ‘closing down’ the discussion as he claims, he initiated contact with Mr Desmond by text message the following day; and it confirms that he rushed through the decision specifically to help the developer avoid a £30-50m levy payable to the local council for infrastructure in one of the poorest local authorities in England.

The housing secretary needs to come to the House to explain these discrepancies as a matter of urgency: the public must be reassured that there is not one rule for the Conservatives and their wealthy donors and another rule for everyone else.

The Lib Dem MP Layla Moran has said the revelations make Jenrick’s position untenable.

These documents are further evidence that he rushed through this planning decision to help a Tory donor avoid paying millions in tax. This whole grubby saga netted the Conservative party only £12,000, but could have helped Richard Desmond save up to £50m.

The public will be appalled at what looks like a clear abuse of power. Robert Jenrick must go and the Conservative Party must hand back this donation.

Raising a point of order in the Commons, the shadow communities secretary Steve Reed asked whether Jenrick had indicated if he would make a statement following the release of documents relating to the Westferry development application.

Has the Speaker received notification from (Mr Jenrick) that he wishes to give a statement on the documents he has recently released regarding the Westferry decision if there appear to be significant discrepancies between what (Mr Jenrick) told the House and what is revealed in the documents?

Specifically that he did not immediately notify officials following his dinner with the applicant Richard Desmond, that rather than closing discussion down with the developer, as (Mr Jenrick) implied, he instead initiated contact with him the next day via text.

And the letters confirm that he rushed through the decision deliberately to help the developer avoid a 30 to 50 million levy payable to Tower Hamlets Council?

The deputy speaker Dame Rosie Winterton responded:

I have received no notification that (Mr Jenrick) intends to make a statement but obviously the Treasury bench will have heard his (Mr Reed’s) comments, and it is obviously up to ministers to come to the House if they wish to say anything to correct the record through any statement or other means.

According to the documents, that site visit did not take place and no further communication followed because Jenrick “did not take Mr Desmond’s calls” when he attempted to get in contact “on a number of occasions”.

Another message from Desmond followed on 23 December, in which he said:

Morning Robert How does the advice look? We have to get the approval before January 15 otherwise payment of 45 million pounds to tower hamlets (sic) meaning we have to stop and reduce social housing.

According to the documents, Jenrick again did not reply and it was not until 22 January that he got back in touch, after he approved the development, overruling both Tower Hamlets Council and a planning inspector. His message read:

Richard I hope you understood that I could not speak with you or have contact whilst I was making my decision with respect to the planning application at Westferry - which was why I did not return your messages. Best wishes, Robert.

Desmond replied:

Robert I totally understand why we could not have contact with you or your department while you were making the decision. I have now pushed the button on a further 600million investment at the development as a result of the decision, enabling the social housing and market housing to more than double together with the delivery of the magnificent new school etc etc.

This will create thousands of new jobs pretty much straight away - as we are ‘on it’ and don’t hang around!!!

That exchange, the final messages included in the documents, ended with the pair agreeing to a site visit in March.

Further text message exchanges followed, beginning on 13 December, when Desmond congratulated the Jenrick on the Conservative election win.

Robert, fantastic day today! So happy and relieved as the whole country is. Well done for keeping calm.

Looking forward to next Thursday. Are you coming here to our offices at 10.30 am and then we’ll all go down to Westferry together? Do you need transport?

But, two days later, Jenrick said he would be unable to make the meeting due to the Queen’s speech.

However we will meet up soon. And I will look at the advice regarding the application this week. Best wishes, Robert.

Desmond replied on the same day asking if they could meet before Christmas but the documents say Jenrick did not reply.

The documents also include text messages exchanged between Jenrick and Desmond shortly after the Tory party fundraiser in November 2019.

On the night of the event, 18 November, Jenrick texted the former media mogul saying it was “good to spend time with him” and looked forward to seeing him again.

In another exchange two days later, Desmond tried to arrange a meeting with the housing secretary for 19 December, as well as a site visit to the Westferry Printworks, complaining about dealing with “Marxists”.

Good news finally the inspectors reports have gone to you today, we appreciate the speed as we don’t want to give Marxists loads of doe for nothing!

We all want to go with the scheme and the social housing we have proposed and spent a month at the Marxist town hall debating, thanks again, all my best, Richard.

Jenrick replied declining a meeting until after a decision had been made due to his position.

As Secretary of State it is important not to give any appearance of being influenced by applicants of cases that I may have a role in or to have predetermined them and so I think it is best that we don’t meet until after the matter has been decided, one way of [sic] another – and I can’t provide any advice to you on that, other than to say that I will receive advice from my officials after the general election assuming I remain in office and will consider it carefully in accordance with the rules and guidance.

Jenrick is under pressure to resign as the newly released documents indicate that he insisted the planning decision for the £1bn development should be rushed through so that a Tory donor’s company could reduce costs by up to £50m.

In one document, a civil servant in the ministry for housing, communities and local government wrote that the secretary of state wanted the Westferry development in east London to be signed off the following day so that Desmond’s company would avoid the Community Infrastructure Levy. The official wrote:

On timing, my understanding is that SoS is/was insistent that decision issued this week ie tomorrow – as next week the viability of the scheme is impacted by a change in the London CIL regime.

Jenrick has also previously confirmed that he looked at images of the development on the phone of Desmond, the former owner of Express Newspapers, at a Tory fundraising event, as revealed by the Sunday Times.

The Guardian’s latest Politics Weekly podcast is out. Jonathan Freedland and Kate Proctor discuss the latest in Westminster, and Peter Walker updates us on Robert Jenrick’s troubles. Plus, Miatta Fahnbulleh and Anoosh Chakelian discuss what’s next for the UK economy, post-furlough scheme.

And in another article for the Guardian Stephen Reicher, a psychology professor and member of SPI-B, the Sage subcommittee advising the government on behavioural issues, has strongly criticised Boris Johnson’s decision to abandon the two-metre rule. Here’s an extract.

Whatever the prime minister might say, his policies lead to banner headlines such as Freedom Pass and Independence Day. But we don’t even need to read the papers. Every time we pass an open bar, it will scream to us that the danger is all but gone and we are “back to normal”. After all, who in their right mind would reopen the pubs and abandon distancing in the midst of a deadly pandemic?

But perhaps that is overstating things a little. After all, the government isn’t abandoning all distancing measures. It is saying 1 metre is acceptable when 2 metres is impossible, as long as other measures are applied. True. However, research in the field of proxemics – the study of space and social interaction – shows that, in the UK, 1 metre is roughly the distance we ordinarily maintain with others. So reducing it to 1 metre is akin to removing any restrictions from distancing, and hence functions as another signal of back to normal.

The full article is here.

UPDATE: And this is what Prof Stephen Reicher had to say about Boris Johnson’s comments about the test and trace system at PMQs.

Labour has warned Rishi Sunak that the Treasury’s one-size-fits-all approach to ending wage subsidies risks a period of mass unemployment that will reverse much of the good done by the furlough, my colleague Larry Elliott reports. Writing for the Guardian, the shadow chancellor, Anneliese Dodds, called on Sunak to use his planned summer statement next month to extend financial support to vulnerable sectors beyond the October deadline for winding up the scheme.

The full story from Larry is here.

Tracey Crouch, the Conservative former sports minister, has revealed that she is being treated for breast cancer.

There has been one further coronavirus death in Northern Ireland, according to the Department of Health in Northern Ireland, taking the total to 547.

The head of Scotland’s largest teaching union has written an excoriating letter to members highlighting the “anxiety, frustration, confusion and even anger” prompted by the Scottish government’s decision yesterday to park agreed plans for a socially distanced return to schools in August, instead telling teachers to prepare for full-time return with no distancing.

The move came after a significant backlash from concerned parents who were facing indefinite part-time schooling as some years groups were told pupils would only be spending one or two days each week in classrooms and the rest at home.

The general secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), Larry Flanagan, described it as a “political announcement”, and said that the statement had not been discussed with the CERG (Covid Education Recovery Group), of which he is a member.

In a strongly-worded members’ email, Flanagan said the sudden policy shift from blended model of at-home and in-school learning to accommodate distancing to no distancing was a “maybes aye; maybes naw” scenario, dependent on levels of virus suppression in seven weeks’ time and giving no certainty in the interim.

He also highlighted to frustration of teachers who had been working hard to put blended learning in place, only to have the plans change dramatically in the week – and in some cases on the day – that term ends.

He added that the EIS “is not convinced that no physical distancing between pupils is safe and we are absolutely certain that physical distancing between pupils and teachers remains essential”. Accepting that by August the amount of distance required may have been reduced from the current 2-metre requirement – the Scottish government’s scientific advisory group will report on this by 2 July - Flannagan insisted “there cannot be a social distancing rule for outside of schools and a different one for inside classrooms”.

Public Health Wales has recorded a further eight coronavirus deaths in Wales, taking the total to 1,491. The full details are here.

NHS England has recorded a further 51 hospital coronavirus deaths in England, taking the total to 28,435. The full details are here.

For comparison, here are the equivalent daily figures announced over the last two weeks.

Wednesday 10 June - 88

Thursday 11 June - 83

Friday 12 June - 70

Saturday 13 June - 67

Sunday 14 June - 27

Monday 15 June - 28

Tuesday 16 June - 79

Wednesday 17 June - 77

Thursday 18 June - 62

Friday 19 June - 46

Saturday 20 June - 71

Sunday 21 June - 26

Monday 22 June - 20

Tuesday 23 June - 46

At the Commons home affairs committee this morning Yvette Cooper, the Labour chair, said she was “shocked” when told that full police data on the proportion of lockdown fines handed to BAME people would not be released until late July.

As PA Media reports, the chairman of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), Martin Hewitt, told the committee the figures would only be ready in the third week of July. Publicly available data suggests that black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people have been at least 50% more likely to receive coronavirus lockdown fines in England than white people. The Government Statistical Service is looking through all police data up to 8 June, before it will be published by the NPCC. Hewitt told the committee:

I think it is really important that data is contextualised. Ultimately each force has to account for the way that they ran the operation through the pandemic.

In response, Cooper said:

This is a very long time to wait for what seems to be some extremely basic data that actually seems to be really important in the policing decisions that need to be made.

I’ll be honest with you, I’m really shocked that you don’t have this data that you haven’t got a system for collecting this data built in from the beginning and that it is taking so long.

I do appreciate that these were completely new regulations that you had to enforce but I don’t understand why this data wouldn’t be collected normally anyway and that you can’t provide it more swiftly.

Students in year 11 who have missed out after six months of “neglect” need urgent financial support from the government so they do not fall further behind, an education leader has warned. Speaking to the Commons education committee, David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges (AoC), said he was worried that teenagers in year 11 had not been a priority for many schools during closures amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

And he said it was “indefensible” that 16-year-olds starting college in September have been left out of the government’s £1bn plan to help young people catch up with their education in the autumn. He told the MPs:

We’ve asked for £200m - which will be a pupil premium type upgrade for funding for those students who need it most. Disadvantaged students getting the extra support in the autumn to catch up after six months of probably some neglect.

Here is the PA Media story about PMQs.

Boris Johnson was accused of either dodging questions or giving “dodgy answers” as he came under fire for the government’s Covid-19 contact-tracing app.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer cut a frustrated figure as he clashed with Johnson at PMQs over England’s readiness to ease lockdown restrictions.

The prime minister responded by urging Stamer to press Labour councils to encourage children to return to school when asked about the timescale for a working app to track people who have been in contact with someone with Covid-19.

Some £11.8m was spent by the government on developing its own NHSX app before it was ditched. It is now examining software created by Apple and Google to build one.

Speaking in the Commons, Starmer highlighted how two previous answers from the PM about a decrease in absolute child poverty and relative child poverty were judged “mostly false” by the office of the children’s commissioner for England.

He said another claim from the PM about fewer families living in poverty was also deemed “false”.

Starmer said of Johnson: “He’s been found out. He either dodges the question or he gives dodgy answers.

“No more witnesses, I rest my case. Will the prime minister do the decent thing and correct the record in relation to child poverty?”

Johnson replied: “I’m happy to point out to my learned friend that actually there are 100,000 fewer children in absolute poverty and 500,000 falling below the thresholds of low income and material deprivation.”

The Scottish government has published a graphic guide (pdf) to the lockdown easing measures announced by Nicola Sturgeon this afternoon. (See 1.12pm.) There is also a summary here.

And here is the text of Sturgeon’s speech to the Scottish parliament about the announcement.

Matt Rodda, the Labour MP for Reading East, asks about the attack at the weekend. Will the investigation get all it needs?

Johnson thanks Rodda for the question and pays tribute to the police and members of the public who intervened. If there are any lessons to be learnt, they will be learnt, he says. And he says they will not let this sort of senseless murder change our way of life.

And that’s it. PMQs is over.

Flick Drummond, a Conservative, asks about tension between India and China.

Johnson says the government is monitoring the situation closely.

Johnson says of course he accepts responsibility for everything that happened.

But the discharge of patients into care homes was done on the basis of clinical advice, he says.

Ian Levy, a Conservative, asks about investment in Blyth Valley.

Johnson says UK steel manufacturers will be at the front of the queue for the infrastructure opportunities he is creating.

Johnson says the government is going to implement the recommendations of the Windrush report. It is committed to stamping out racism, he says.

The DUP’s Sammy Wilson asks about plans to put border controls at Larne in Northern Ireland.

Johnson claims there will be no new customs infrastructure because under the Northern Ireland Protocol it is clear that Northern Ireland is part of the UK.

Labour’s John Spellar asks for changes to rules relating to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, which he says discriminates against BAME people.

Johnson says any MP knows about the hard cases thrown up by this. He says the government is considering what to do in the light of a supreme court ruling on this.

Robert Butler, a Conservative, asks if the government will help people acquire new skills if they lose their jobs.

Johnson says he will. He wants to encourage as many in-work placements.

Labour’s Mohammad Yasin says the government does not know how many people are infected. Testing figures are not reliable, he suggests.

Johnson claims the government has a pretty good estimate as to the extent of coronavirus. And he says the government is getting better at local crackdowns.

The SNP’s Philippa Whitford asks what the government will do to protect aerospace jobs.

Johnson says he wants to use this as an opportunity to promote low-carbon technology. He claims this will help the industry.

Labour’s Jessica Morden says people with terminal conditions have to prove they are terminally ill if they want to access certain benefits. They are at risk of losing out. She asks the government to implement the recommendations of a review looking at this.

Johnson says he will write to her about this.

Liz Saville Roberts, the Plaid Cymru leader at Westminster, says Covid has broken out in three Welsh food processing plants. The workers in these places are low-paid. Will the government commit to local furlough-type schemes?

Johnson says the furlough scheme has been a massive commitment.

He says if we have to move back to local lockdowns, “nobody should be penalised for doing the right thing”.

(That sounded like an appeal to employers to ensure that staff who have to isolate don’t lose out, but it is unclear from what he said he intends to enforce that in any way.)

Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, says MPs will want to pass their condolences to the family of the three children killed in a house fire in Paisley last week.

He asks about the BMJ letter (see 11.40am), and he says there is an economic emergency too. Will the PM welcome the plans in the Benny Higgins report presented to the Scottish government?

Johnson says he will look at the report.

Blackford asks Johnson if he will give the Scottish government the powers it needs for economic recovery.

Johnson refers to the sums of money the Scottish government is already getting from London.

Starmer turns to the app. This really matters, he says. How on earth do you contact everyone in a crowded place without one. The government used to say it was critical. Now it is only additional. Is it critical or not?

Johnson says Starmer cannot name a single country in the world with a successful app, because there is not one. He says the opposition is yo-yoing.

Starmer says he is using the government’s own figures. He says the PM should not resist challenge, because challenge makes for better policy.

He says councils want to know what local lockdown means. When will councils get the guidance they need?

Johnson says, when there are local outbreaks, there have been local lockdowns. There is an effective “cluster-busting operation”, he says. He says this is effective.

He says he is not going to pretend this is beaten. Councils will be supported, he says.

Starmer says Johnson did not address the question. He asks about those not being contacted. He says Johnson risk making the same mistakes as he did at the start. he says he will ask the question in a different way; what is the strategy for reaching those missed.

Johnson says Starmer has misled MPs.

The Speaker reprimands him.

Johnson says Starmer has inadvertently misled MPs. He says the scheme has contacted the vast majority of people who tested positive. He says he understands how lawyers work. Is Starmer for or against the scheme?

Sir Keir Starmer says Labour wants the plan to work. But for it to work, the UK needs an effective test and trace system. The latest figures show around 30,000 people are infected. But only around 10,000 people are being reached. There is a big problem, isn’t there?

Johnson disagrees. He says Starmer has been “stunned” by the success of the system. He says 87,000 people have been contacted and have agreed to self-isolate. He says Starmer would not have predicted that.

Sarah Atherton, a Conservative, says her constituents welcomed the decision to reduce the Covid alert level from 4 to 3. Does the PM agree a UK-wide approach is what works?

Boris Johnson starts by thanking Atherton for her work as a doctor during the pandemic. And he agrees.

These are from Tom Newton Dunn from Times Radio on the new guidelines for England.

The Times’s Patrick Maguire has some drinking news for people who work at Westminster.

Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, has launched a consultation today on a proposal to move the Greater London Authority out of City Hall and relocate it to the Crystal building in the Royal Docks. He says this could save London £55m over five years.

The Liberal Democrat leadership candidate Layla Moran has said the government should hold a review of its handling of coronavirus now so that it can use the lessons to prepare for a potential second spike. In a statement she said:

The government needs to listen to the concerns being raised by scientists and medical experts and implement an urgent review into its handling of the coronavirus so far. We need to ensure that any review is fully independent from the government, fully transparent and that all parties are then invited to come together to develop practical recommendations.

We know that significant mistakes have been made, from the failure to get a test and trace system up and running to lack of PPE. An honest, independent appraisal of these mistakes would ensure the right lessons are learned.

In the Commons yesterday her rival in the contest, the acting Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey, made more or less exactly the same argument. In response, Boris Johnson said an inquiry now would not be “a good use of official time”.

Voting opens in the Lib Dem leadership contest at the end of next month, and the result will be announced at the end of August.

YouGov published some snap polling on the lockdown easing measures for England announced by Boris Johnson yesterday. It suggests almost half the public think he has got it about right, while just over a third think he is going too far.

Rachel Burden from the BBC’s Radio 5 Live has more on the new guidance issued by the government overnight.

The Scottish government has relied too heavily on food charity during the coronavirus outbreak, according to Food Workers for Food Justice, a group of independent food banks, community food groups and supporting organisations who have written an open letter to the first minister, Nicola Sturgeon.

While praising the Scottish government’s “cash first” approach to food aid, the letter calls for an end to the government’s dependence on food banks and stresses that direct monetary relief must be accessible to all those who need it.

The Trussell Trust reported an 89% increase in need for emergency food parcels during April 2020, while the Independent Food Aid Network figures show a 246% increase in the number of parcels distributed in Scotland in April 2020 in comparison with last year.

Setting out a manifesto for long-term change, the signatories - who represent over 35 different community food initiatives based in 14 Scottish local authorities – put forward a plan for nationwide food hubs that are community run but centrally funded as part of a move towards building a local and sustainable food system, as well as enshrining the right to food in law. “Now is the time to start creating these structures that will enable resilience for future crisis scenarios and provide essential support today.”

Sabine Goodwin, coordinator of the Independent Food Aid Network, said:

Independent food banks in Scotland have reported huge increases in need for emergency food parcels since the outbreak of Covid-19. The Scottish government’s “cash first” approach is most welcome but as the poverty crisis deepens much more needs to be done. Food bank teams are doing all they can but the voices of frontline volunteers need to be heard. They cannot continue to be relied on to pick up the pieces.

Scientists have proposed lifting lockdown completely for a “medium-sized city” to see if coronavirus can be controlled through weekly testing of residents, PA Media reports. A paper published in the Royal Society Open Science journal argues that a demonstration study is needed to see if such regular testing, strict household quarantine, contact tracing and mobile phone apps could end the Covid-19 epidemic.

Researchers suggest large-scale testing of city residents could be done through examining saliva samples - a technique called RT-LAMP testing, which they said is cheaper and more viable than nasal or throat swab tests. The paper, authored by Julian Peto, professor of epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and 10 other experts, said 10 million tests per day are needed for weekly testing of the UK population. It said:

This is feasible with single-step RT-LAMP on saliva samples, which requires minimal equipment and training. A facility with about 100 staff could probably do 50,000 tests per day. If so, a city of 350,000 people could be served by a single laboratory.

As PA Media reports, researchers said no government has considered this option as it was assumed it would not be technically possible, but they argued that the technology could be implemented “even in low resource rural settings”.

And Steven Swinford from the Times has some highlights from the new guidance too.

Jack Blanchard from Politico Europe has already had a good look at the new guidance (see 9.29am) for his London Playbook morning briefing. For some reason, he seemed to take a keen interest in the rules that would apply for pubs. Here’s an extract from his write-up.

Meet ‘n’ greet: Pubs will be offering hand sanitizer at the door, while “encouraging compliance” among drinkers with the new limits on social gatherings. In other words — staff will be expected to explain to that big gang of lads who came in for some serious drinking on Super Saturday that, erm, sorry about this chaps, but “indoor gatherings should be limited to members of any two households”. It should make for some entertaining conversations about people’s supposed living arrangements, if nothing else.

This is England: Ministers clearly fear sudden rain showers could also be a problem, when beer gardens are packed and access to venues restricted. Pubs should be “planning for maintaining social distancing … in the event of adverse weather conditions,” the government warns, “being clear that customers cannot seek shelter indoors unless social distancing can be maintained.” Again, the conversations at the door with the now half-cut (and half-soaked) lads demanding shelter at the bar should be worth watching.

Commenting on the fact that gyms and swimming pools are still not able to open Mark Sesnan, chief executive of Greenwich Leisure, said the government needed to act soon to avoid “cataclysm” for public leisure facilities.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said:

I think there is a big danger that if this goes on much longer, the light at the end of the tunnel was to be able to open from 6 July - someone has just switched that light off.

They need to turn it back on again fairly quickly if we are to avoid the kind of cataclysm because there is no money coming in and the expenses are still going out.

The furlough scheme is great and we thank the chancellor for that but staff is only half our costs.

At the moment, it is still rescue-able but much longer and I think the country will have a problem nationwide with public facilities struggling to ever reopen.

Health leaders are calling for an urgent review to ensure Britain is properly prepared for the “real risk” of a second wave of coronavirus.

In an open letter to the leaders of all the UK political parties, published in the British Medical Journal, the health leaders call for a “rapid and forward-looking assessment” of the state of national preparedness.

The appeal is backed by the presidents of the Royal Colleges of Physicians, Surgeons, GPs and Nursing, and the chair of the British Medical Association. They said:

While the future shape of the pandemic in the UK is hard to predict, the available evidence indicates that local flare-ups are increasingly likely and a second wave a real risk.

Many elements of the infrastructure needed to contain the virus are beginning to be put in place, but substantial challenges remain. The job now is not only to deal urgently with the wide-ranging impacts of the first phase of the pandemic, but to ensure that the country is adequately prepared to contain a second phase.

Read the full story here:

Scotland’s education secretary, John Swinney, has insisted that there is no contradiction between his announcement yesterday that pupils can return to school full-time with no physical distancing, and Nicola Sturgeon’s continued adherence to 2-metre social distancing.

He said the Scottish government was guided by international evidence of successful return to school with no distancing, as well as evidence that young people generally are not as affected by coronavirus or as significant transmitters of it. He added that there had been significant suppression of the virus in Scotland over the past month, going from 20,000 people capable of transmitting the infection to 2,000, and that there may be further changes to social distancing guidance across society by August.

Last week Swinney suggested that it was likely that part-time schooling – the “blending learning” model which had councils planning for a mixture of in-school and at-home learning with some year groups in the classroom for as little as one or two days a week – would continue for the entire academic year 2020-21.

But yesterday Swinney told teachers to prepare for a full-time return from 11 August, which opposition parties have dubbed a “screeching U-turn” in the face of growing parental pressure. But Swinney insisted on BBC Radio Scotland this morning that the decision was taken in light of continued suppression of the virus and compliance with public health measures.

Asked about the anger voiced by many teachers yesterday at the about-turn – the week that schools break up for the summer holidays – after they spent weeks preparing for a blended model, Swinney thanked them for their hard work and insisted that the blended model remains a contingency plan.

Sir David King, former chief scientific adviser to the government has been speaking on Sky News this morning. He believes the lockdown easing is happening “too quickly” and risks a “very significant” second wave.

The decision to exit lockdown is a “political” one, he says.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme Adrian Vinken, the chief executive of the Theatre Royal Plymouth, has said theatres are unlikely to be able to reopen until social distancing measures were scrapped entirely.

He said the Devon theatre has told more than 100 staff - a third of its operation - that their jobs could be at risk.

The government will allow theatres to reopen from 4 July but not for live performances - a change Vinken said was unlikely to benefit theatres, such as his, which did not have large screens to compete with cinemas.

Asked whether the new measure would have any benefit for his organisation, Vinken said:

None whatsoever.

Only when social distancing is a thing of the past and people feel comfortable and able to return safely to the theatre, the sheer economics of large-scale theatre just won’t work.

The closure of courts across the UK has created a huge backlog of cases.

This led to some judges suggesting that less serious crimes could be tried in crown courts before a judge without a jury in order to tackle the thousands of cases building up during the pandemic crisis.

Robert Buckland, the justice secretary, has told MPs that the backlog in the criminal justice system in England and Wales had grown to around 41,000 cases.

Read that full story here:

Caroline Goodwin QC, the chair of the Criminal Bar Association, has been on the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:

She urged ministers to give the criminal justice sector access to more buildings in order to restart jury trials.

She said:

The courts are open, everything that is possibly being done is actually being put into place to open those buildings so we can have juries back in.

There is no question other than the way forward at this time, in this situation, is to open those buildings up, make sure that they are safe, give us access to more buildings where we can bring jurors in, give us those facilities and we can deliver in a very short period of time because we put our shoulder to the wheel.

What we are asking the Lord Chancellor to do is give us access to more buildings.

This is a question of practical logistics.

Dame Louise Casey, who was put in charge of a government specialist taskforce to tackle homelessness in May, has been speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning.

She was very upbeat and positive about the opportunity that now exists to end rough sleeping for good, as hotels start to reopen for business. She said:

It’s a huge job to manage all of this .... it’s a hugely busy time already but we all have to keep going.

An extra £85m has been announced by the Treasury to provide emergency accommodation for 5,400 rough sleepers who have been placed in hotels in England for the duration of the pandemic, avoiding them having to return to the streets when the hotels reopen to the public this summer.

Read that story here:

She also said there had to be a solution for those rough sleepers who have no recourse to public funds.

Let’s remember Covid-19 has not gone away, and I am already concerned that people have gone out of hotels onto the streets in London.

Whether you are from Portugal, Eritrea or Kent, Covid-19 is still very much alive and still very much can kill people so you have to take the necessary precautions.

She added that organisations across the country had made extraordinary efforts to end rough sleeping, and there was a steely determination in the sector to ensure things did not go back to the way they were.

Enough people are really up for making sure we don’t go back to mass rough sleeping, and with the money we have, God willing, we won’t have to.